The door opened hospitably to receive us. We were welcomed by a lady with a most sweet, benignant countenance, and by her companion, some years younger. The first was Mrs. Morrison—the other, Miss Elizabeth Dodge, daughter of General Dodge.
My husband laid me upon a small bed, in the room where the ladies had been sitting at work. They took off my bonnet and riding-dress, chafed my hands, and prepared me some warm wine and water, by which I was soon revived. A half hour’s repose so refreshed me that I was able to converse with the ladies, and to relieve my husband’s mind of all anxiety on my account. Tea was announced soon after, and we repaired to an adjoining building, for Morrison’s, like the establishment of all settlers of that period, consisted of a group of detached log-houses or cabins, each containing one or at most two apartments.
The table groaned with good cheer, and brought to mind some that I had seen among the old-fashioned Dutch residents on the banks of the Hudson.
I had recovered my spirits, and we were quite a cheerful party. Mrs. Morrison told us that during the first eighteen months she passed in this country she did not speak with a white woman, the only society she had being that of her husband and two black servant-women.
A Tennessee woman had called in with her little son just before tea, and we amused Mr. Kinzie with a description of the pair. The mother’s visit was simply one of courtesy. She was a little dumpy woman, with a complexion burned perfectly red by the sun—hair of an exact tow-color, braided up from her forehead in front and from her neck behind, then meeting on the top of her head, was fastened with a small tin comb. Her dress was of checkered homespun, a “very tight fit,” and as she wore no ruff or handkerchief around her neck, she looked as if just prepared for execution. She was evidently awe-struck at the sight of visitors, and seemed inclined to take her departure at once; but the boy, not so easily intimidated, would not understand her signs and pinches until he had sidled up to Mrs. Morrison, and drawing his old hat still farther over his eyes, begged for a whang, meaning a narrow strip of deer-skin. The lady very obligingly cut one from a large smoked skin, which she produced from its receptacle, and mother and son took their leave, with a smiling but rather a scared look.
After tea we returned to Mrs. Morrison’s parlor, where she kindly insisted on my again reposing myself on the little bed, to recruit me, as she said, for the ensuing day’s journey. My husband, in the meantime, went to look after the accommodation of his men and horses.
During the conversation that ensued, I learned that Mrs. Morrison had passed much time in the neighborhood of my recent home in Oneida county—that many of the friends I had loved and valued were likewise her friends, and that she had even proposed to visit me at Fort Winnebago on hearing of my arrival there, in order to commence an acquaintance which had thus been brought about by other and unexpected means.
Long and pleasant was the discourse we held together until a late hour, and mutual was the satisfaction with which we passed old friends and by-gone events in review, much to the edification of Miss Dodge, and of the gentlemen when they once more joined us.